Start Again
by Shade Embry
Summary: Mason thinks about who he's leaving behind who is thinking of him as he's leaving. Spoilers for 10-11 PM.


**Start Again**  
Brittany "Thespis" Frederick  
  
_The lyrics belong to Duncan Sheik from his song "Start Again," which is my perfect Season 2 Mason-Liz anthem. The fic is mine, but standard disclaimers apply (i.e. all but Liz are not mine, though I wish they were). Spoilers up to 10-11 P.M. And the inspiration is one hundred percent Xander Berkeley._  
  
  
In the last year and a half Elisabeth Rycoff had gone from being the Chief of Technology for CTU to the acting ASAC to the actual Assistant Special Agent In Charge. She had always said from midnight eighteen months before when she'd had to help Jack Bauer scrape his identity off the ITS room floor that she was not ready and she knew she would never be ready now. Not when one man she loved had left her to face his own death, and the other was in a plane sacrificing his life for millions more. She could never start over but she had no choice.  
  
_Peace has lost its meaning  
Now we've hit the ceiling  
All is said, all is done  
Here goes, start again_  
  
She didn't know that moments ago George Mason had convinced Jack Bauer to trade places with him and that Jack would indeed survive to fight beside her again, if he even chose to do that. She didn't know George was sacrificing himself and she never would. He didn't want her to know because he knew she would try to talk him out of it. And maybe it was selfish, but she'd come to need him, and to need Jack, and she had almost died today when they had both left her alone. She was incapable of being alone.  
  
Somewhere inside of her, as Jack jumped out of the airplane and left Mason to his chosen fate, something twisted, sputtered and died. It was a sign for her of something she did not ever want to think about. The one moment George could show himself for what she knew him to be and it would be his last – it just didn't seem fair. And she just seemed worthless without him.  
  
_You're better than you think so  
Something I hold on to  
I'm better too, holding on to you  
Start again_  
  
Up in the air as he looked his own death down with preparation and a numbness he could not contain, Mason thought of Liz for not the first and not the last time since he had made up his mind. He couldn't imagine the torture she was going through. He'd made preparations for her, knowing he was going to die, preparations to make sure her career was secure and she was taken care of. It was the least he could do for the one woman who believed in him, but it didn't seem like enough.  
  
He gripped the plane's controls tighter, although he didn't have to do anything with them just yet. The permanence of them made him reconcile to what he was about to do. And he willed that Liz might know how much he cared about her, despite what they both knew he had to do. She had always talked about having a purpose and crafting a life with meaning; she had taught him those edicts and now he was only living as she had helped him to live. Hopefully she would find more resolve and less suffering inside with that in her mind. If there was any justice left.  
  
_So meet me and we'll drive this car away  
We can leave right now, what do you say?  
We'll head out for the wide and open spaces  
If we can clear the way_  
  
Liz looked up from the remains of Jack's desk as Tony came walking into what remained of the SAC's office. Her own desk downstairs was surprisingly intact, but she just felt more comfortable among the ruins of the war she'd lived that was killing her. Tony of all people knew that Liz, who had nearly died today of medical complications, might just die of a broken heart. He had always known she didn't love him, and had wondered if she could find it in herself to love anyone after her many brutal years. Now he knew the answer.  
  
He took her hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze, but she kept shaking. When she looked at him, he could see her eyes red-rimmed and bloodshot from crying. He had never thought her capable of shedding tears but she had been literally, emotionally, torn apart. She had always endured and now she was failing and he could not save her. Only two men could, and one would soon pass on.  
  
"Liz," he said quietly, "they made a switch. George is taking the plane; Jack's coming home." Unsurprisingly that really didn't make it that much better in her eyes; she was still losing a deeply loved one, losing her fight to prove everything could be survived. Tony knew she had to walk this road alone and he let her.  
  
_Save yourself, don't save me  
Save the one you may be  
Let it be the best that it can be  
Start again_  
  
Mason suddenly knew that she knew he wasn't coming back. He knew she'd hoped to stay with him to the end. She was with him to the end; she was with him in his heart, in his mind, in this conviction that made him give up his life for her and everyone else. He could recall how many times she had challenged him to assert himself, to look inside himself and find the man she knew was inside the jaded shell, to take the leap. It would always be okay because she would catch him. This time, things would be different, but still he felt water behind his eyes as she motivated him to the brink.  
  
He had always had dreams for her, dreams where they worked shoulder-to-shoulder at Division on something much more challenging and deserving of her talent. But she had always refused him. In the beginning he had chalked this up to a blind and fierce loyalty to Jack that he did not understand; now he understood it because she had shown the same loyalty to him without question. He only hoped he was deserving of it in the end, and that he could give her something back.  
  
The plane went into its final dive, and Mason sent out one last prayer to make sure the one guardian angel he had never deserved knew how much he cared and got all that she wanted and more. It was supposed to end this way.  
  
_So meet me and we'll drive this car away  
We can leave right now, what do you say?  
We'll head out for the wide and open spaces  
If we can clear the way_  
  
Moments later, the Cessna slammed into the depression, the bomb was detonated, and George Mason's life ended in an explosion of traumatic proportions. The last thought on his mind was of hopefully being a better person than the one he had been before.  
  
At the same split second, Liz Rycoff collapsed in a fresh round of tears on the remains of Jack Bauer's desk, silent but continuous, shattered and hollow. It was as if she knew that he was gone. As memories of their life together flooded her mind, she fell apart, the vulnerability how she would remember one of her dearest friends and allies until she followed him beyond.  
  
She knew she didn't have a protector anymore, Tony would say later, but she had a guardian angel. Liz would have to start her life again. Because she couldn't protect anyone anymore. She needed what she had once given, and now the man who had needed what she had given would return the favor for as long as it takes. There was eternity left between them.   
  
_So meet me and we'll drive this car away  
We can leave right now, what do you say?  
We'll head out for the wide and open spaces  
If we can clear the way..._


End file.
